In order to support higher data rate and spectrum efficiency, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) system has been introduced into 3GPP Release 8 (R8). (LTE Release 8 may be referred to herein as LTE R8 or R8-LTE.) In LTE, transmissions on the uplink are performed using Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA). In particular, the SC-FDMA used in the LTE uplink is based on Discrete Fourier Transform Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM) technology. As used hereafter, the terms SC-FDMA and DFT-S-OFDM are used interchangeably.
In LTE, a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), alternatively referred to as a user equipment (UE), transmits on the uplink using a limited, contiguous set of assigned sub-carriers in a Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) arrangement. For example, if the overall Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signal or system bandwidth in the uplink is composed of useful sub-carriers numbered 1 to 100, a first given WTRU may be assigned to transmit on sub-carriers 1-12, a second WTRU may be assigned to transmit on sub-carriers 13-24, and so on. While the different WTRUs may each transmit into a subset of the available transmission bandwidth, an evolved Node-B (eNodeB) serving the WTRUs may receive the composite uplink signal across the entire transmission bandwidth.
LTE Advanced (which includes LTE Release 10 (R10), also referred to herein as LTE-A, LTE R10, or R10-LTE, and which may include future releases such as Release 11) is an enhancement of the LTE standard that provides a fully-compliant 4G upgrade path for LTE and 3G networks. In LTE-A, carrier aggregation is supported, and, unlike in LTE, multiple carriers may be assigned to the uplink, downlink, or both.
In both LTE and LTE-A, a UE, and therefore a user, may experience service degradation at a cell edge. Throughput, quality of service (QoS), and other factors may be affected by interference from other cells when a UE is operated at the edge of a cell. What is needed in the art are methods and systems that leverage the capabilities of LTE-A to address the problems with US operation at the edge of a cell.